“Cuando dejamos de tener nuestras propias propuestas terminamos negociando las de los demás. Cuando esto sucede ya no somos nosotros: somos ellos; nos convertimos en parte del sistema global de crimen organizado”

which confirms that actors who receive preferred standing and are able to stabilize their appearances across the media environment over time tend to be considered trustworthy. Interestingly enough, this relationship also operates the other way round. Media representatives consider CCC members as legitimate voices and provide them access to their outlets owing to their regular interaction with institutional poli-tics

. First, as has been underlined above, one needs to take into account both actors’ inward oriented and outward oriented communicative practices. In addition, it is understood that media representation today goes far beyond coverage by mainstream media as it relies on actors’ multi-layered media ensemble. Second, instead of arguing for a straightforward causal correlation between ‘media attention’ and social standing, this research reveals a more eclectic process: a spiral of legitimation that is based on the relation between the organization’s internal communicative figuration and the communicative figuration related to the public discourse around the political qualities of contemporary media technologies and infrastructures

The Club’s media ensemble and interactions with rel-evant actors perpetuate each other and co-determine the Club’s abil-ity to politicize media technologies and infrastructures. The dynamic at hand that best describes this process will be referred to as a spiral of legitimation.According to Mark Suchman, legitimacy is practically the basis of poli-tics as it addresses the forces ‘that constrain, construct, and empower organizational actors

t from day one the Club complemented its hacks with outward-oriented com-munication aimed to make the hackers’ findings comprehensible and its political demands visible to the largest possible public. The Btx hack itself, for example, would not have been overly effectual if news media had not picked up the story. As news media reported widely on the hack and were largely in support of the hackers’ criticism, the hack gained an event character. Following the Btx hack, the CCC was recognized as a collective actor that had something relevant to say about the communi-cation and information landscape in Germany. The CCC was invited to speak on the main television news magazine of public broadcaster ZDF, the advice of Club members was frequently sought by national newspa-pers, they were asked by corporations to speak on data security and were requested by the newly established Green Party to write a report on the Party’s potential use of networked computing. one of the important details here is that instead of only being the subject of media coverage, the CCC had the opportunity to communicate its point of view to differ-ent audiences

During that time, the CCC was publicly affiliated with illegal hacks that, amongst other things, involved the Soviet Union’s KGB (the Committee for State Security) and hacking into NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) computer systems. As internal communication soured, accusations got out of hand and dis-putes amongst core members led to controversies that almost saw the Club’s dissolution. After reorganizing and re-establishing its own iden-tity over the coming year

day is a digital rights and civil society organization whose members have advised all major political parties in Germany over the past years, have written expert reports for the German constitutional court on six occasions and have been invited to be part of governmental committees. organization, in the context of this framework, is not understood as a static phenom-enon, but as a ‘discursive construction’ (Fairhurst and Putnam 2004) produced through an ongoing process of ‘organized sense makin

Thismaynotbestatedexplicitly,butthediscourseoninscribingdigitalrightsashumanrightsininternationalhumanrightslawoftenassumesthattheforceofsuchlawswillguaranteethatindividuals,states,corporations,andotherbodieswillperformthem.Thisassumptionfailstorecognizethathowpeopleexperiencebeingdigitalcitizensandhowtheyperformrightsbybringingthemintobeingthroughenactingthemselvesarethegroundsonwhichrightswillbeguaranteed.Howpeopleexperienceperformingrightsisthekeytounderstandinghowtheyinhabitthatspaceofrightsanddevelopapoliticalsubjectivitynecessarytomakingrightsclaims‘I,we,theyhavearightto’.Withoutsuchunderstandingandwithoutdevelopingconceptsandmethodsappropriatetosuchanunderstanding,mosteffortstoinscriberights,weareafraid,wouldremaininadequate,forthesewouldberightswithoutpoliticalsubjects.Conversely,thesamecanbesaidforthosewhoassumethattheenactmentofrights,ofimaginativelyandperformativelybringingrightsintobeing,wouldguaranteetheirinscription.Withoutunderstandingthelegalityofclaimsandtheirscopeorsubstance,suchenactmentswouldremaininadequate,too.Withouttheforceoflaw,thiswouldamounttosubjectswithoutpoliticalrights.Itisthatspacebetweeninscriptionandenactmentthatprovidescluestounderstandinghowdigitalcitizensareemergingaspoliticalsubjectsofoureraandthosewhosepoliticssidewitheitherinscriptionorenactmentaresomewhatmissingthesignificanceofthatrelation.